PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A memorial quickly came together after Manuel Hilario was fatally shot as he sat in a car parked outside a convenience store in the Wanskuck neighborhood.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A memorial quickly came together after Manuel Hilario was fatally shot as he sat in a car parked outside a convenience store in the Wanskuck neighborhood.

A nearby utility pole was tightly wrapped with T-shirts bearing the imprinted photograph of the 19-year-old city man and festooned with beads and keepsakes. A slew of lit candles and liquor bottles were placed at the base.

Nearly four years later, remnants of the memorial still cling to the pole at Clym and Berkshire streets, like a tattered flag. With a few of the contents scattered on the ground, it’s obvious that nobody tends it anymore.

City officials are moving to limit roadside memorials that often pop up at the scene of a tragedy, concerned that they become obstacles to daily life and eyesores. The makeshift shrines usually consist of candles, stuffed toy animals, flowers, bottles of liquor and a photograph of the person who died there.

An ordinance revision approved by the City Council Thursday identifies roadside memorials as an issue, observes that they have proliferated and explicitly empowers the city director of public works and the police to remove them.

Councilman David Salvatore, D-Ward 14, said the proposed amendment is meant to encourage public works and police personnel to pay attention to the memorials and remove them when it seems appropriate to act.

In order for the revision to take effect, the council must approve it a second time and the mayor must sign it into law or allow it to become law without his signature.

“It’s a very touchy situation,” Councilman Nicholas Narducci Jr., D-Ward 4, said of the memorials. “They all start out for the right reason. They want to respect the dead.”

Memorials sometimes infringe on an individual’s private property or freedom of movement, but people are afraid that if they move or remove a memorial, they might suffer retaliation, he said.

Some materialize in front of a business and become a hangout for people who appear antisocial and intimidate potential customers of the business, Narducci said. In a specific case he cited on Moy Street in Wanskuck, a memorial blocked a resident’s front gate and part of his driveway.

“They used to come 2, 3 o’clock in the morning, partying, but supposedly mourning” at the site, Narducci related. Gang members would fire guns, he said, and neighbors were afraid to do anything about it.

Police commanders have mixed feelings about disturbing the memorials although some say they are excessive and allowed to linger too long. Others fret that if the police are perceived as tampering with memorials, it will hurt the Police Department’s image with racial and ethnic minority groups.

Public Safety Commissioner Steven M. Paré could not be reached for comment.

Narducci conceded, “I know the Police Department has a lot more to worry about than these makeshift memorials.”

He initially proposed that memorials be prohibited, but as a compromise, suggested they be allowed to stay up for 30 days and then be carted away.

“We all grieve,” he said. “After a while it loses its original reason.”

Other officials, however, would not embrace a ban or a time limit.

Yvonne Graf, council chief of staff, informed council members that the Law Department opined that a 30-day limit might imply government consent to a memorial for that period.

The preamble to the proposed amendment says a memorial might impede safe pedestrian and motor vehicle travel by being a physical or visual obstacle or distraction. Memorials often contain flammable items that, if left unattended, might be injurious, it is noted in the preamble.

The would-be amendment states that the police in particular may remove, at their own discretion or by request, any memorial that “obstructs a public right of way, encroaches on private property, and/or creates a public safety concern.”

The DPW director already has the authority to remove any obstruction in the public right of way. The proposed amendment makes it explicit that the director may take down a memorial.

Narducci said Thursday that he got the DPW involved with the Moy Street memorial and that public works personnel posted a notice of its impending removal. The memorial, which existed for about a month, was taken down on the grounds that it obstructed the sidewalk and intruded on private property, he reported.

Under other ordinances, it is already illegal to attach anything to a utility pole or to leave portable sports equipment such as basketball and hockey nets in a public right of way.

Narducci and Salvatore said they and their constituents are annoyed by memorials that deteriorate and become an eyesore, but the proposed revamp does not say anything about that.

Anyone who puts up a memorial in violation of the ordinance may be punished by a fine of $10 to $500.